She's always had a soft spot for Romney, but she points out that he got into office supporting the status quo on abortion, but when a human cloning bill came up, he didn't just go with the zeitgeist.

Romney had a complicated — and controversial, given the ethical and
scientific fog amid which the issue was presented — decision to make
back in 2005, and he took it seriously.

He seems to have begun re-evaluating life matters from there. A lot of people don't believe that; I find it plausible.

I did know (as she says most folks do not) that the legislature was 85% Dem while he was governor, and his compromises and rhetoric need to be evaluated with that in mind. Furthermore, it ticks me off when Conservatives fault Romney for being a flipper on health care when his plan was largely the Heritage Foundation plan, and many Conservatives hailed him as a hero and innovator at the time. So if Romney is a flipper on that issue, so's the whole damn movement, for heaven's sake --and he has shown considerable restraint in not releasing a list of Conservatives who supported his plan at the time.

I'm not baptizing it, I'm just saying it was then considered a worthy experiment in the "laboratory of democracy" -- just as Romney now maintains.

But that gets me thinking: here are two examples of instances where Romney was both bold and thoughtful --whatever criticisms we might make in hindsight. Maybe there is more to him than focus groups?

(On another note, enough already with the sterile lamentation "if only" Mitch Daniels or Paul Ryan or Chris Christie had run. Even at a time of ultimate peril for their nation, none of that trio had the guts to enter, so spare me.)